Broun, Gingrey Leaving Conservative Hole in House

Broun, above, and Gingrey didn’t make the Georgia Senate runoff, so they’ll be going home at the end of this session. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

The defeat of tea-party-aligned candidates in primaries across the country was a disappointment to conservatives, but perhaps nowhere will the hard-right suffer more from the establishment “Super Tuesday” sweep than in Georgia.

Two conservative House members now know for sure their Capitol Hill careers will expire at the end of this year.

“It’s going to be a big void to fill. You couldn’t have asked for more from Congressman Broun. He’s been there with conservatives on every single issue,” said Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for America. “Gingrey’s been right there too. We’re losing two very, very good members of the House.”

Of course, in leadership circles the eulogy might read the exact opposite. Broun, 68, holds the distinction of the second highest Heritage Action score, voting lockstep with the conservative advocacy group on 96 percent of its key votes. As such, he has been a perennial thorn in the side of leadership.

He has said that global warming is a “hoax” and freely calls Obama a socialist, bragging in a fundraising letter last year that he was the first in Congress to do so. He live-tweeted that criticism and more, instead of attending the president’s 2011 State of the Union address.

Broun also frequently votes against leadership’s priorities, even those generally perceived to be conservative. For instance, he is one of the few Republican members to sometimes vote against Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan’s spending blueprints. He went so far as to pen a New York Times op-ed last year, explaining that Ryan’s plan “fails to seriously address runaway government spending, the most pressing problem facing our nation.”

But Broun is perhaps best known in Congress for his yearly barrage of appropriations amendments. He routinely offers more amendments than any other member, some of them dicing relatively minor amounts from appropriations bill, and most of them failing by wide margins on the House floor.

In Washington, 71-year-old Gingrey is best known for his stances on health care issues; he is the co-founder and co-chairman of the Republican Doctors Caucus, a group of GOP medical professionals who tried to influence health policy in the conference.

Like Broun, he voted against Ryan’s fiscal blueprint, and Gingrey’s rationale was that it did not go far enough to repeal Obama’s health care law. He cast doubt on Obama’s assertion that he and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met dozens of times leading up to the rocky roll-out of the health care law, going so far as to send a letter to Sebelius asking her to prove it.

Gingrey also trained his eye on changes to medical malpractice laws, and the House passed his legislation capping awards in 2012 and 2005, though the bills did not become law.

Gingrey and Broun belong to the Republican Study Committee and Gingrey is one of the House’s staunchest opponents of abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. He’s also a member of the Republican Policy Committee, which helps steer the House GOP agenda.

The Georgia delegation is losing one more: Rep. Jack Kingston advanced to the Republican primary runoff for the Senate race as Broun and Gingrey lost. Should he win the nomination, it’s not a straight shot to claiming the Senate seat left open by retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Democrats think their candidate, Michelle Nunn, has a fighting chance.

It’s not just Georgia that will miss the Hon. Reps. Broun and Gingrey. The entire country will miss these God fearing men when they leave Washington.

GraceD

I assume you are being sarcastic? There is nothing honorable about being feeding the uninformed misinformation. These men were not leaders, they were “Neanderthals”.

Manny G

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GraceD

Thank goodness! Two ” radical nuts” out of the House! Still a lot to go!! We the people, have to get out the vote & take back our state, from the GOP crowd that has just about destroyed the state & grid locked the Congress.
Do you ever wonder why all our “good ” Ga Doctors fought so hard against health care access for everyone? Where is their proposals? And if they were so “caring” why did they not address problems in both our health care problems & in our VA delivery system?
Didn’t do much, if any oversight, did they. They ought to be ashamed.

York Aptain Sidney Field

Those still preaching from collectivism’s altar have abandoned Marxism for the Fabian strategy of small steps toward centralized control.

Mark Hammel

While certain successes, such as penicillin’s discovery, may be accidental and thus have little merit, many useless failures have been undertaken with great merit.

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